Mademoiselle de Corandeuil recognized the correctness of this observation, and left the room, asking the others to follow her.  During this time, Madame de Bergenheim remained motionless in her place, apparently insensible to all that surrounded her.  The noise of the closing door aroused her from her stupor.  She looked around the room as if she were seeking the others; her eyes, which were opened with the fixed look of a somnambulist, did not change their expression when they fell upon her husband.

“Come nearer,” said he, “I have not strength enough to speak loud.”

She obeyed mechanically.  When she saw the large red stain which had soaked Christian’s right sleeve, she closed her eyes, threw back her head, and her features contracted with a horrified expression.

“You women are wonderfully fastidious,” said the Baron, as he noticed this movement; “you delight in causing a murder, but the slightest scratch frightens you.  Pass over to the left side; you will not see so much blood-besides, it is the side where the heart is.”

There was something terrible in the irony of the voice in which he spoke at this moment.  Clemence fell upon her knees beside him and took his hand, crying,

“Pardon! pardon!”

The dying man took away his hand, raised his wife’s head, and, looking at her a few moments attentively, he said at last: 

“Your eyes are very dry.  No tears!  What! not one tear when you see me thus!”

“I can not weep,” replied she; “I shall die!”

“It is very humiliating for me to be so poorly regretted, and it does you little honor—­try to shed a few tears, Madame—­it will be remarked—­a widow who does not weep!”

“A widow—­never!” she said, with energy.

“It would be convenient if they sold tears as they sell crape, would it not?  Ah! only you women have a real talent for that—­all women know how to weep.”

“You will not die, Christian—­oh! tell me that you will not die—­and that you will forgive me.”

“Your lover has killed me,” said Bergenheim, slowly; “I have a bullet in my chest—­I feel it—­I am the one who is to die—­in less than an hour I shall be a corpse—­don’t you see how hard it is already for me to talk?”

In reality his voice was becoming weaker and weaker.  His breath grew shorter with each word; a wheezing sound within his chest indicated the extent of the lesion and the continued extravasation of blood.

“Mercy! pardon!” exclaimed the unhappy woman, prostrating herself upon the floor.

“More air—­open the windows—­” said the Baron, as he fell back upon the mattress, exhausted by the efforts he had just made to talk.

Madame de Bergenheim obeyed his order with the precision of an automaton.  A fresh, pure breeze entered the room; when the curtains were raised, floods of light illuminated the floor, and the old portraits, suddenly lighted up, looked like ghosts who had left their graves to witness the death agonies of the last of their descendants.  Christian, refreshed by the air which swept over his face, sat up again.  He gazed with a melancholy eye at the radiant sun and the green woods which lay stretched out in front of the chateau.